


Another Life

by PlayingChello



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Hospitalization, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicide Attempt, chase away the gay camp, homophobic parents, you would think this would be happy but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 16:51:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4927525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayingChello/pseuds/PlayingChello
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dante and Nero are in love in high school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Life

**Author's Note:**

> Don't let me watch Grey's Anatomy and think about Danero AUs.

It’s entirely innocent, when they meet.

Dante’s a big man on campus with the right crowd. Class clown, head strong, wild. He’s not really into doing work, so he skates by on good looks and luck. And maybe a bit on the teachers wanting him out of their classes.

Nero’s quieter. He’s fiercely loyal and known to be a brawler. Gets in fights a lot. He’s not much for school either, but he does his work. Wants to avoid attention from the teachers.

It’s a coincidence that they share a class and end up seated next to each other in the back of the room. Strike up conversation because of first day of class mandatory meet and greets. They find camaraderie in one another. Pass the time and the monotony of class with passed notes. Always folded up into stupid little shapes and passed a little less than discreetly.

It’s months later that they actually meet outside of class, under the pretense of a class project. Turns out they don’t do much school work. Instead, they laugh and learn about one another. It’s the budding of a close friendship, two people falling into comfortable companionship.

They don’t even notice when their talking leans more into flirting. Don’t even notice the way that their nights together get longer and the distance between them on the couch shorter. They don’t notice how their relationship has gotten closer and morphed into something else until their lips meet nearly by accident one evening in an empty parking lot.

The stuttering apologies and awkwardness that follows is short lived. The moment their eyes meet again they find the truth there. The second kiss is better. Still fumbling and awkward, but more sure, deeper.

And everything and nothing changes.

They still pass stupid notes. Still fold them up. But now they hold words of love and care. Secret plans to meet somewhere they can be together in peace. Little doodles and puns.

Nero keeps them in a box under his bed.

He goes back to them when he has bad days. Days he gets in fights. Days his mom and stepdad are on him a little too hard. Even just on days he wants to feel a little closer to Dante but is locked up at home for one reason or another. They’re his safe haven. A reassurance. A happy place amid all the tortures of his life.

Dante fills the box happily. They do everything together. Usually, everything is just Dante driving them out to some abandoned location so they can make out. Hold hands. Be together.

One night, after an adventure with Dante involving half a bottle of stolen whiskey and some rocks thrown at empty bottles, Nero comes home in good spirits. He opens the door and tosses his bag aside. Goes to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. Not even his parents can bring him down tonight. Not after such a perfect evening with the one he loves so much.

Sandwich made, he goes up the stairs to his room, with a goal of some hardcore gaming until he passes out. He toes his shoes off somewhere along the way and pushes open his door.

And there is his mother.

With a box in her lap and pieces of paper all around her.

Nero’s vaguely aware of dropping the sandwich on the floor before the full extent of his mother’s fury is exacted upon him. She yells, she screams, and she hits. She hits hard. And when he’s curled up on the floor, barely able to move and little more than a scared child, she gathers up all those notes, all the little memories that have kept Nero sane, and shoves them back into the box. Then she leaves the room with it.

It takes a great effort for him to pull himself off the floor. But he does. He gets himself up and drags himself down the stairs because there is little in his life and certainly nothing in this house that means more to him than that box of notes.

When he makes it to the living room, it’s already mostly ash.

“I’m calling the pastor in the morning, we’re going to find a place for you to go so they can help you. And you are _never_ to see this Dante boy again. Do you hear me, Nero? Never. No more phone.”

He stares in abject horror at the flames licking around the last vestiges of cardboard, no words and no air with which to say them. It could be minutes or hours later that he finally moves back to his room, but the flames have died down and there’s hardly even ash remaining. With no phone to contact Dante, he just lays down in his bed and cries.

The next day, he doesn’t go to school. He can barely move enough to get out of bed. So he doesn’t. He stays there and he cries.

It’s the day after that he makes himself go back to school. He needs to. Needs to see Dante and needs to tell him he loves him no matter what.

To say Dante is furious is an understatement.

He kisses each bruise and cut on Nero’s face and vows vengeance on the person who did this to him. When Nero explains what happened, Dante can’t believe his ears. “I won’t let them take you, kid. We’ll figure something out. I’m not leaving you.”

They duck out on class in the afternoon and run off to this little bridge over the train tracks where no one ever goes. No one but stoners and couples at night at least, the beer cans and spray paint are evidence of that. They spend their time just talking. Throwing out ideas of how to stop the trainwreck that has become Nero’s life.

The sound of a train coming, still far off in the distance, snaps both their heads in that direction. He doesn’t know where the idea comes from exactly, but Nero is the one that throws it out there. Dante is reluctant, but Nero is surprised by how little convincing it takes to get him to agree. They’ve already thrown out all their other options. It’s the only way.

He hardly feels anything at impact. It’s afterwards, when he realises that he hasn’t died, that he starts to feel. It’s like every beating his mother or any of the guys he’s gotten into fights with gave him all happened at once. But he can’t scream. He can hardly see. But he can.

He can see Dante. He’s not that far off, lying broken a few feet away. Nero can’t tell if he’s still alive, too. He tries to call out, but he can’t. His mouth won’t move and his voice won’t work. So he screams it in his mind. Screams out how much he loves that boy.

Hours later, paramedics come. Nero’s hardly conscious and he’s just so cold. He floats in and out while he’s transported. Can’t really understand what the doctors say. At some point they put a mask over his face and then he stops remembering. The next thing he knows, he’s waking up in a hospital room alone.

“He’s awake!” A voice calls out from nearby. People rush over to him and start prodding and writing and speaking in words he doesn’t know. One turns to him, “Do you know the name of the other boy in the crash?”

Nero has to think really hard in order to speak, “Do-don’t know h-im.” Safer that way, his parents are surely on the way.

“We know that isn’t true.” Fuck. “We are doing everything we can to save his life but w-”

“He- he’s ali-ve?” Nero cuts her off.

She nods, “Barely. But we need consent for the surgery, he’s under age. We need his name.”

It’s a long time before Nero can bring himself to speak again, but finally, he utters the truth, “Dante.”

One of the doctors runs off with the information while another comes barreling in, “His parents are here and they want to see him.”

Nero’s eyes go wide. Well as wide as they can in his current state. His heart rate skyrockets, he can hear the monitor going nuts, and he violently, though painfully, shakes his head. The same doctor that had been speaking with him puts a hand on his shoulder, “What?”

“They want… they’ll send me- away. A c-amp. To make me… better.”

The doctor stares at him in confusion before realisation washes over her face, “Nero, do you like boys? Do you like Dante?” He wonders how she knew _his_ name, but he probably had his wallet on him or something. Finally, he nods.

The doctor turns toward the new arrival, “Tell them he’s in post op, no visitors allowed.”

Nero heaves as deep a breath as he can and relaxes back into the bed. He gets a reassuring smile from the doctor before he’s ignored while they continue reviewing his vitals.

He stays the night free from his parents. But also free from any news of Dante. The doctors come by every now and then to change dressings and check on him, but the one that spoke with him doesn’t come back.

Not until morning.

Her face is red and blotchy with emotion and held back tears. Nero doesn’t know what it means when a doctor cries, but he’s pretty sure it’s nothing good.

“There was… a lot of bleeding. And we did everythi- _everything_ we could. I’m so sorry for your loss…” anything she says after that is lost on Nero. His mind is filled with the sound of trains on tracks and air whistling in his ears. He can’t breathe.

Dante can’t be gone. Not without him. They were supposed to do this _together_.

Together forever, in this life or the next. Whatever it took.

Apparently it took more than a train running them over.

\--

Weeks later, he’s released to his parents. An altercation at the hospital lead to child protective services to be called, but they couldn’t do anything. So he went home with his family, and then immediately to a camp.

Two days in, he gets ahold of a pair of scissors.

He doesn’t even hesitate.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/playingchello).


End file.
